RADIO: ROUND THE HORNE

by Tony Lang (reprinted from LAUGH MAGAZINE #13, 1995)

The 1960s marked what many describe as the end of the great era of radio comedy. This had started in the 1940s with shows such as ITMA, and had continued through the 1950s with Take It From Here, The Goon Show and Hancock’s Half Hour. The 1960s saw Beyond Our Ken, I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again and of course Round The Horne.

Barry Took had been scriptwriter for around forty programmes of Beyond Our Ken with Eric Merriman, before leaving to work for Granada Television with Marty Feldman. Then early in 1965 Took and Feldman were contacted by John Simmonds who had taken over production of Beyond Our Ken from Jacques Brown. He informed them that Eric Merriman wanted to give up writing the show, and asked if they would be interested in taking over the job.

They arranged to meet at the headquarters of BBC Light Entertainment, The Aeolian Hall in Bond Street. With him to discuss the idea were Roy Rich (Head of Light Entertainment), Edward Taylor (the Script Editor, who had originally suggested Took and Feldman for the role), and Kenneth Horne.

Initially, the writers considered that they were under too much pressure from other work and turned down the offer. After the meeting they changed their minds and agreed to write the scripts for a trial series of six shows.

Beyond Our Ken had been extremely successful, and Took and Feldman were reluctant to change the format of the show. However, they felt that the show should have a new name to reflect the new writing team, and so Round The Horne was born.

The cast was to be the same as before with Kenneth Horne as the central character around whom a team of crazy characters would revolve. He had started his radio career in 1940 as question master in the radio quiz show Ack Ack Beer Beer (named after the Anti Aircraft Barrage Balloon branch of the armed forces).

During and after the war he spent a long spell as one of the stars of Much Binding In The Marsh with Richard Murdoch, at first on the BBC and then later on Radio Luxembourg. He was also chairman of Twenty Questions. He combined this work with a successful career in industry (he had read economics at Cambridge and was Sales Director of Triplex Glass and held other City Directorships).

In 1957 he suffered a stroke which led to his retiring from industry to concentrate on showbiz. His massive avuncular personality, rich ‘plummy’ voice and almost straight man roles, pictured him as a figure of old world authority, lending an air of respectability to Round The Horne. Many jokes were made about his baldness leading to his being named the uncrowned head of the show”.

Kenneth Williams was well known as a comedy actor, probably best remembered for his parts in the Carry On films. He was one of the stars of the legendary radio show Hancock’s Half Hour where he supplied most of the funny voices, character roles and catchphrases. He had a bawdy sense of humour which seemed to conflict with his aesthetic attitude to life.

His autobiography, Just Williams was published in 1985, three years before his death. In Round The Horne he frequently complained that the writers were not servicing him properly, leading to outbursts of mock outrage that stopped the show. In fact he had some of the funniest lines in the scripts and provided most of the best remembered characters.

Many of the more dramatic roles were provided by Hugh Paddick. This well known actor had originally studied law but he soon found that he preferred the theatre.

Most of the female voices were provided by Betty Marsden. She had studied at the Italian Conti Stage School, followed by a spell with ENSA during the war. Betty has appeared in a wide range of roles from Blake’s Seyen to The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie.

Other roles were provided by Bill Pertwee, who made his show-business debut as a concert party impressionist in 1955. Apart from Beyond Our Ken/Round The Horne, his best known role is as the self important air raid warden Hodges in Dad’s Army.

Many BBC comedy shows had comic announcers and Round The Horne was no exception, the job being filled by Douglas Smith. He joined the European service of the BBC in 1946 and went on to become a Radio 3 announcer and television newsreader. Interestingly, he was also a specialist in classical music. Douglas’s characters were mainly assorted inanimate objects such as inflatable rubber rafts and volcanos.

His other duties included linking the various sketches, and providing verbal sound effects along the lines of chug chug, splot, pissssst and bang. In the fourth series he went a stage further and stepped up to the microphone to sing Nobody Loves A Fairy When She’s Forty. He died of cancer in 1972.

The musical break was provided by The Fraser Hayes Four. This close harmony group was formed inthe fifties and worked together in clubs TV and radio until i967, when Tony Hayes foged another group called the Skylarks and Jimmy Fraser left to follow a solo career in the US.

Incidental music was provided initially by Paul Fenoulhet and the Horneblowers, until replaced by Edwin Braden from the sixth show in the first series onwards. For the second Christmas special and later episodes, The Max Harris Group took over responsibility for the incidental music and the musical break was dropped.

Trying to keep everything under control was the producer, John Simmonds. He had started as a sound effects boy and worked his way up to the Head of Department. His job was a hard one on Round The Horne, due to the problem of BBC censorship. This had always been quite strict. The Goon Show in the 1950s had pushed the barriers back a little, but Round The Horne almost tried to demolish them.

The show developed a reputation for double entendres, which led to the BBC receiving a large number of complaints. One recurring objection was that the cast put a strong emphasis on certain words. Luckily the BBC shared the attitude of the scriptwriters and cast – that if there was a degree of ambiguity in the script and it was made clear enough, then it was permissible. If the listeners wanted to attach a particularly vulgar meaning to some word or phrase then that was up to them.

Two of the most frequent complainers were the self-appointed censors of the day, Mary Whitehouse and Sir Cyril Black. When they took umbrage at some indiscretion, the writers counter attacked using the words of their complaint in the next show. The censors only won one round of the war when they registered disapproval of the quasi-biblical phrases used by J. Peasemold Gruntfuttock, and made the writers stop using such language.

Barry Took described in his recent book of scripts that the head of the BBC Light Programme, Dennis Morris didn’t enjoy the show, and whenever there was a question of taste, the script would be sent to the Director General, Hugh Greene, who always returned the script with the note ‘I see nothing to object to in this’. He later admitted that he ‘liked dirty shows’.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, television started to compete more strenuously for the attention of the public. In order to stay competitive, radio shows tightened up their production schedules to make them more economic. One of the ways to achieve this was in the advance preparation of sound effects, music and scripts, leading to much reduced rehearsal times. A typical 1950s radio comedy show would have been rehearsed and recorded in around six hours. Round The Horne achieved the same result in three hours.

The shows were all rehearsed and recorded at the Paris Studios in Regent Street, and followed a similar format to that started in the 1950s with Take It From Here. First there were the introductory items, followed by a longish story such as Moby Duck or the Three Musketeers (introduced as presentations of Armpit Theatre, Movie Go Wrong or The Kenneth Horne Theatre of Suspense). Some of these, such as The Muffplaster Saga and the Admirable Loombucket (a send up of The Admirable Crichton), ran for more than one episode.

In the first three series, this was followed by a song from The Fraser Hayes Four, which in turn was followed by either Trends or the Colour Supplement. A few special shows such as The Gruntfuttock Saga strayed from this formula.

The first series of sixteen shows started on the 7th March 1965, and included the initial instalments of three ongoing segments – the backroom boys of the BBC, the Clissold Saga in which Kenneth Horne talked to the much married and much divorced Lady Beatrice Counterblast nee Clissold (Betty Marsden) and her loony Butler Spasm (Kenneth Williams), and Trends, in which the cast discussed items of interest such as fashion, art and music.

The Clissold Saga introduced the first two of the many catchphrases used in the show – “Many, many, times” (first uttered by Lady Counterblast when asked how many times she had been married), and “We be doomed, we all be doomed”, the favourite phrase of her butler. Many more catchphrases were to follow, despite Feldman and Took originally deciding not to use such devices. Apparently the cast kept pencilling them in until they eventually gave up.

The second show in the series included the answers to a nonexistent quiz (which had supposedly been set the previous week), an item which soon become a regular feature of the programme.

Episode four marked the first appearance of Julian (Kenneth Williams) and Sandy (Hugh Paddick) as a pair of out of work actors filling in by working for a domestic agency called Rent-A-Chap. They were two extremely camp gentlemen, named after Julian Slade and Sandy Wilson who separately wrote two of the biggest stage hits of the 1960s – Salad Days and The Boy Friend.

The characters had quite different personalities. Julian was an introvert who had had several embarrassing experiences in the past. He was the submissive and vulnerable one, particularly about his friend Gordon (occasionally played by Bill Pertwee). Sandy, on the other hand, was more of an extrovert who wanted to ‘bring it all out into the open’. They were very popular and again had a language all of their own, this time taken from the world of costumiers and window dressers.

They turned up every week with yet another part time enterprise, such as ‘Bona Performers’ or ‘Bona Law’ (“You name it, we’ll do it, ducky”). Each had his own selection of catchphrases, including “Oh hello, I’m Julian and this is my friend Sandy”, “That’s your actual French” (supposedly invented by Peter Cook) and “Ohh bold! Very bold!”. It was the first time that overtly gay characters had been portrayed on British radio (with the possible exception of Flowerdew in The Goon Show), but these two made few bones about their, then illegal, inclinations.

The fifth show included the first appearance by J. Peasemold Gruntfuttock – the walking slum (played by Kenneth Williams). This dilapidated wreck started his radio career in Beyond Our Ken as the man who had been doing everything for 35 years, and developed into the sometimes King of Peasemoldia – a kingdom somewhere just off the Balls Pond Road.

He was a persistent letter writer to the show, supplying answers to quiz questions such as “complete the following song title: I’m gonna sit right down and.. . .. “, and guided by the voices who manifest themselves from a pig’s head in a butcher’s window. His wife Buttercup (Betty Marsden) comes from an even lower class background, although a later episode describes her as Dame Bella Goatcabin.

Show six saw the first change of personnel when Edwin Braden took over the Horneblowers from Paul Fenoulhet, and the first of many detective/spy story send-ups was launched, here entitled ‘Inspector Horne’s Casebook’.

Charles (Hugh Paddick) and Fiona (Betty Marsden) arrived with episode eight and introduced us to two melodramatic characters played in innumerable cinematic triumphs of the thirties and forties by Dame Celia Molestrangler and ageing juvenile Binkie Huckerback. Their films included such epics as Brief Ecstasy, In Which We Serve and The Hasty Nose, all played in the best tradition of Noel Coward’s Brief Encounter.

In show nine, Kenneth Horne first crossed paths with Chou en Ginsberg MA (Failed) (Kenneth Williams), a fiendish Japanese mastermind who never managed to outwit his adversaries. Their first encounter was entitled ‘Kenneth Home, Counter Agent – The Spy Who Came In With A Cold’.

Chou was joined in the next show by his neurotic concubine, Lotus Blossom (Hugh Paddick) who was, in the words of her master, common as muck, and who has been described by Barry Took as like ‘a depressed Derek Jameson’.

Another character to make his debut in this show was Rambling Syd Rumpo (Kenneth Williams). This doyen of folk singers, roamed the countryside seeking ‘traditional airs’ and then pulled his ditty from his gander bag each week in the studio. His offerings were sung to the tunes of well known numbers and featured a language all of their own with words such as nadger, cordwangle, grussetts and moulie. (For those who wonder about such things, a mooli is in fact a type of large radish – honest).

The songs were designed to sound obscene without actually being so. The majority of the audience, judging by their dirty laughter, gave them very suggestive meanings indeed, aided by Kenneth Horne’s mock serious support. The producer preferred his own lily-white meanings, or so he said; which may be why the script writers often said that Round The Horne would never have got on the air but for his innocence.

Rambling Syd first burst forth with an old Hebridean goat whirdling song and a Norfolk shree picking song. These sound quite tame compared to his later ditties, which rapidly became longer and more dubious sounding. An LP of a Rambling Syd Rumpo concert was later released and became a best seller.

Show twelve was the only edition to be recorded twice, the second version (on 22nd July 1966) for the BBC Transcription Service, who required a slight doctoring to remove topical references.

The series ended on June 20th with a patriotic song and a short thank you speech.

The second season of thirteen programmes began on 13th March 1966 with a format much as before. The main addition was The Seamus Android Show, a loosely disguised parody of well known chat shows. The host was a send-up of Eamonn Andrews and the epitome of all inept TV interviewers, who had apparently not only kissed the blarney stone but had been battered senseless with it. His guests in forthcoming segments included such well known personalities as Zsa Zsa Poltergeist, Rabid Daily, Michael Bain, Barbara Cartload, Gladys Runt and Daryl F. Cliffhanger IV.

The fourth programme of the series featured a new role for announcer Douglas Smith. Due to the low rate of pay at the BBC he has decided to slip in adverts for Dobbiroids, the magic horse rejuvenator (which formed a running joke during the next few shows).

The seventh show was a special – Dobbiroids Theatre of the Air presented Dr McKinley’s Scrapbook, a musical send up of television’s Dr Finlay’s Casebook.

Programme eight included the first appearance in Round The Horne of an unnamed character, listed in the scripts as ‘Dentures’ (Hugh Paddick using his Stanley Birkershaw voice from Beyond our Ken) whose sibilants gave a shower bath to everyone nearby.

The final edition of the series was broadcast on June 5th, and six months later a special seasonal offering was broadcast on Christmas Day 1966. This show is notable as being the only Round The Horne without Kenneth Horne (who missed the programme due to illness).

Two new characters made their debuts in this show. The first was Daphne Whitethigh, a hoarse voiced, thinly disguised send up of television chef Fanny Craddock. Her mouth-watering recipes included baboon in the hole, moose stroganoff and best end of rhino (it doesn’t taste very nice but the crackling is fantastic!) She also provided amazing fashion tips with her comments being almost as crazy as the real thing.

The other new character was Brad Smallpiece (Hugh Paddick) who outlined current and forthcoming events. The magazine segment Trends was replaced by The Colour Supplement (same section, new name!).

The third series of twenty shows started on February 12th 1967 , again with a similar mix of sketches.

The eighth edition featured the first appearance by the Gypsy fortune teller Madame Osiris Gnomeclencher (Hugh Paddick), whose predictions about the future seemed highly reminiscent of those seen in most magazines.

The series departed from its usual format for the ninth show – a special entitled The Gruntfuttock Saga. This epic tale told how Gruntfuttock fought in two world wars and became klown as Gruntfuttock of Arabia. He described his later political career, and his memoirs published by Bona Press (Julian and Sandy). The show ended with the anthem “Gruntfuttock – ‘Tis Of Thee”.

By the middle of the season each episode began with a review of activities taking place to celebrate some important event, such as “Unzip a Hyena for Peace Week”, “Smear a Traffic Warden in Bloater Paste for Asia Day” and “Festoon a Gnome in Bacon Rind Day”. Frequent participants in these events were the Over Eighties Nudist Basketball Team.

The series ended with the twentieth show, broadcast on June 25th 1967. This was the last to include Bill Pertwee and The Fraser Hayes Four. Marty Feldman also left the writing team at this point, to concentrate on films and television, although he still made the odd contribution to later scripts.

Another Christmas special was broadcast on Christmas Eve 1967, with Kenneth Home throwing a party for the other characters in the show.

The fourth (and last) series of sixteen programmes started on February 25th1968. Barry Took was still writing the scripts, and he was now joined by Johnnie Mortimer, Brian Cooke and (for the first seven programmes) Donald Webster. The Max Harris Group took over the job of supplying the incidental music, and the cast performed a mid-show musical break in place of The Fraser Hayes Four.

A regular feature of this season was Radio Balls Pond Road, with its resident DJ Simon Dee… (followed by ceased, cayed, praved and other similar endings).

The sixth show featured the first appearance of Julie Coolibar (Betty Marsden) – the invention of Johnnie Mortimer and Brian Cooke. She was a neurotic Australian who saw something obscene in everything Kenneth Horne said.

Gerald Monkshabit (Hugh Paddick) made his first appearance in the seventh episode. This intrepid reporter commented on the week’s events from such far away places as Washington and Antarctica. Unfortunately his reports were sent in via shortwave radio and suffered from interference which blotted out certain words.

The last edition was broadcast on June 9th 1968. A note-worthy inclusion is Julian and Sandy’s surprise announcement that they are in fact both married – to Julie (Betty Marsden) and Sandra. It was a rousing send-off for the series and, as fate would have it, for the show itself.

Kenneth Horne died of a heart attack (on stage at the SFTA awards ball) on 14th February 1969, aged 61. The BBC had been planning a fifth series of Round The Horne, and the project was subsequently revamped as Stop Messing About’ with Kenneth Williams as the star. Barry Took was approached as scriptwriter, but felt unable to continue. Hugh Paddick and Douglas Smith stayed with the show, with Joan Sims replacing Betty Marsden (who also felt that the time had come to move on).

On television, the scriptwriters turned their attention to other successes such as Took And Co and At Last! The 1948 Show (see accompanying file for a summary of Feldman’s career). Johnnie Mortimer and Brian Cooke created such TV favourites as Father Dear Father, Man About The House and George and Mildred.

A documentary entitled Round And Round The Horne was broadcast on Radio 4 in 1978. This was subsequently released on disc by the BBC Transcription Service for overseas broadcast.

The characters from Round The Horne could also be heard elsewhere. Chou en Girsberg appeared in a series of adverts for Funai video recorders on ILR in 1985, Charles and Fiona recorded an advert for British Rail on ILR in 1985, and Hugh Paddick was later spotted using his Dentures character on Children’s television.

Kenneth Williams and Hugh Paddick resurrected Julian and Sandy for the BBC1 programme Wogan’s Radio Fun on the 28th December 1987. Their routine was very successful, and the material had to be cut in half as it was over-running due to the laughter of the audience. There was even talk of a new series, but this was scrapped when Williams died.

Round The Horne has proven to be a great success in many countries, including America and Australia, with most of the episodes being released by the BBC Transcription Service on disc for overseas stations to broadcast. They also issued four discs of extracts from the shows. These were Rambling Syd Rumpo (one disc with 20 sketches), Julian and Sandy (two discs with 28 sketches) and Charles and Fiona (one disc with 15 sketches). These were for use in DJ programmes, in magazine programmes of general interest or as fillers.

After releasing several editions as commercial LPs, the BBC eventually issued box sets containing every episode from all four seasons. There have also been cassette and CD collections of Rambling Syd Rumpo, Movie Spoofs and Julian and Sandy highlights.

RECORDINGS

Round The HornePye LP NPL 18291
edited versions of editions of May 14 and June 18 1967
(with extracts from editions of April 23 and June 11 1967)

The Best of Round The HorneB.B.C. LP REH 193
extracts from the editions of March 28, May 23 and June 13 1965, May 15 1966 and April 30 1967Down in the sewers/last week’s quiz answers/Forgotten men of British science – Robert Capability Lackwind, the inventor of toad in the hole/Kenneth Williams complains/The backroom boys of the BBC – The cersors/Trends – Fashion – The home – Rent-a-chap/Rambling Syd Rumpo – Sea shanty/The Clissold Saga part four.The story so far – Rasputin/Last week’s quiz answers/Brother Gruntfuttock/Kenneth Horne Special Agent – Rocket site/Trends -Society – Theatre, Excerpt from The Hasty Nose(Charles and Fiona) – Rambling Syd Rumpo, Bogler’s lass in the Balls Pond Road/Bona Seats

On September 6 1976, Kenneth Williams and Hugh Paddick recreated a number of Julian and Sandy routines (with Barry Took taking over the Kenneth Home parts) at a special recording session in front of an invited audience at the Pye Studios in London …

In the late 1960s (while Round The Horne was still in production), most of the episodes were made available to overseas radio stations for leasing. They were slightly edited from their original British running lengths (to allow for the insertion of commercials).

Charles and FionaCharles the window cleaner
Charles in hospital
Charles the liftman
Charles and his dog
Charles and his haircut
Charles and Roger
Charles the sailor
Charles the peeping tom
Charles and the stars
Charles hits the jackpot
Charles the discoverer
Charles on leave
Charles and London
Charles Marries
Charles the artist

The Best of Round The HorneSelected and introduced by Barry Took
Equation Books, 1989
contains the scripts of 1/5, 1/13, 2/3, 2/4, 2/9, 2/l0, 2/13, the special Transcription Service remake, 3/I, 3/4, 3/6, 3/10, 3/12 and 3/14

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